Alan Stewart’s UK and Ireland family history news

Tithe maps for four English counties go online

TheGenealogist has added maps to its comprehensive National Tithe Records collection.

The website TheGenealogist has made available online fully-linked tithe maps for Middlesex, Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Leicestershire, with other counties to follow shortly.

In partnership with the UK’s National Archives, TheGenealogist is making it possible to search over 11,000,000 records from across England and Wales and to view theses original apportionment documents with linked maps on one website.

TheGenealogist says: “It’s always been a challenge to find where our ancestors lived, but now these records can help you explore the fields and houses in their home villages and towns. Never before have family historians been able search nationwide for these ancestral maps. We plan to have complete coverage in the next few months.

“Tithe maps allow you to pinpoint your ancestors from our records. They show the boundaries of fields, woods, roads, rivers and the location and shape of buildings. The detail recorded within the maps and apportionment records will show you how much land they owned or occupied, where exactly in the parish it was, what the land was used for and how much tithe rent there was to pay.

“The Tithe Commissioners’ maps are now housed in The National Archives (TNA). Due to their age and the materials used, the original maps are often too fragile to handle. These were microfilmed in 1982 and some of the maps have deteriorated over the last 30 years. The first stage of the project is the release of these as online images.

“There are over 12,000 main maps plus thousands of update maps as the boundaries of fields changed over time.

“The second stage will be the delicate conservation and digitisation of the original colour maps.”